Smugglers Cave

Nestled in amongst the cliffs of St Catherines, you’ll find a small hole in the ground. Only this isnt just any hole – this is the entrance to a genuine smugglers cave.

Less than a hundred years ago, this cave was in constant use. The smugglers would sail into the secluded bays of Ventnor, where they could offload their wares away from prying eyes – before hiding the booty in the caves of the nearby cliffs, awaiting pickup from the local thieves.

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The walk up to cave,contains quite a few surprises in itself. Search carefully enough and you’ll find troughs.

These where cut into the cliff face by the Victorians as a means to water animals. This part of the Island relied in Donkey power for many years. The water is 100% pure, due to the filtering through the cliff-face. Although I think I’ll give it a miss this time !.

Ok, so we’ve reached the cave – only from the outside it looks nothing like a cave entrance. The mouth is only 2 feet wide !.

DSCF0300aTime to send the wife in !!.

Once you’ve in, the cave immediately opens up. It runs for about 10 feet, before turning sharply to the left. Another few feet, another turn – takes you to the back of the cave. Unfortunately this is as far as you can go due to rock fall over the last few years.

If you could get through the layer of rock, the tunnel once again cuts through the cliff face – before ending at a huge chasm, rumoured to be over 100 feet deep.

Who knows what secrets this could hold !!.

Note the very flat roof of the cave, its as though it was cut by machinery, rather than hand-carved !. The walls – as you can see – are still quite rough to the touch.

We ran some tests with the EMF meter, to see if we could locate any static pockets or strange electrical currents caused by the flowing water – but all came back negative.

Only one thing for it, best one of us go down into the cave.. Janis thankfully volunteered. As you can see from the video – this was going to be a bit of a tight squeeze. Eventually we managed to get her both, in & OUT of the small entrance !.

This is only one of many secrets that St Catherines hides, infact next time I’ll be taking you into a real pirates cave !. And not just any pirates cave – but a haunted one.

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